


Days of Swim or Sink

by natlet



Category: Oz (1997)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-02
Updated: 2010-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-06 23:30:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natlet/pseuds/natlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McManus throws himself a birthday party. Set a year or two pre-Oz.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Days of Swim or Sink

Murphy's been on the night shift for going on three weeks now and when the phone rings just past ten in the morning he jerks awake with a disoriented kind of urgency, fumbles blindly for it. "'lo?"

"Hey, it's me - shit, sorry, did I wake you up?"

He flops back onto the bed, rubs a hand over his face. "Yeah, it's - it's okay." Except really, it's not okay, because it's going on three years now since Tim took the position at Sing Sing and moved downstate and this is only the second time he's deigned to call - "What's wrong?"

"Nothin, I just, uh." Pause, and in the background Murphy can hear traffic, fragments of passing conversation, an ambulance siren; city noises, and he wonders again what the fuck Tim's doing down there, in the middle of all that commotion, all that rush and noise and focus. "It's my birthday next weekend and I was gonna take some of the guys from work out, dress up, go to a nice restaurant, you know." He gives this weird little nervous laugh. "Kick off the second half of my life in style, and I know it's a long trip but if you'd come - "

His supervisor at the prison's already pissed off at him and he can't afford the time off, but Tim's got some kind of desperate tone in his voice - "Tim, I dunno if my car's gonna make it that far."

"Take the train," Tim says, and Sean gets a flash of him on a payphone, on the street or in the entryway to some little cafe, clutching the receiver to his ear, the laser intensity in his eyes without anything to fix on. "I'll pay for it, just - " His voice cuts out, and Sean thinks, oh, fuck it.

"Okay," he says softly. "I'll be there. Can I go back to sleep now?"

*

It's a little touch and go - Murphy's supe throws a fit and he ends up having to agree to use a week of his vacation time, and his aging Chevy breaks down somewhere near the Pennsylvania border, leaving him cursing and jerking back from a rush of steam under the hood on the side of the highway - but eventually he makes it, winds his way through the tangled little suburb Tim's living in, pulls up in front of an old apartment building and triple-checks the number before he gets out of the car.

Suddenly, he's nervous - oddly, stupidly, because Christ, he's known Tim since they were kids, but it's been a hell of a long time and the city changes people, chews them up and spits them out different - but Murphy forces himself to cross the street, climb the steps and ring the bell, and then he doesn't know why he was ever nervous because he sees Tim through the paned glass, flying down the stairs with a grin on his face to throw open the door. "Hey."

"Hi, Tim." He grins back, reaching out to grip Tim's shoulder for a second, just long enough to make sure he's still real, still warm under there. Tim's looking skinny, but not unhealthy; his shirt's clean and pressed and actually seems tailored and he's got his thinning hair buzzed short but Murphy looks in his eyes and it's the same old McManus.

He follows Tim up the stairs and into an impossibly tiny apartment, a couch and a small recliner barely crammed into the living room, and when they're inside Tim turns to him and his face looks completely different - more lines than there'd been a minute ago, corners of his mouth turned down, eyes hooded and deep, and he turns to Sean and says "Fuck, I missed you."

"Yeah," Sean says, "I know," and he's been in the car eight hours and it's all he can do to take two more steps, reach out and pull Tim into a close, tight hug, hang on for almost too long.

When he lets go, Tim's normal again, going into the kitchen and coming back with a couple long-necked bottles, asking him about work, about his Ma, about home. They sit on the couch and watch the Kings lose to Toronto on TV, and Tim tells him about the city, about the blonde he went on a date with last week, about the cell block he was running. By the time they say goodnight, when Sean stretches out on the couch and pulls a blanket that smells like Tim up around his neck, he can breathe again - and it had been almost three years, and he hadn't even realized he couldn't.

*

Tim comes out of his room, tugs at the lapels on his jacket. "Well?"

For a second, all Sean can do is stare. "Well, shit." He laughs a little, wishes briefly that he'd started drinking already. "Get you out of cow country, clean you up a bit, we got a whole different McManus on our hands."

Tim looks away quick, but he's grinning. "Not so bad yourself."

Sean adjusts his bow tie for the tenth or eleventh time, checking his reflection in the dark screen of Tim's TV. "Feel like I'm goin' to a wedding." He glances over his shoulder. "Speaking of, that blonde you're seeing coming tonight?"

"Nah, she's - " Tim kind of shuffles a little and Sean has a flash of him at sixteen and the first crush he ever admitted to, tiny Mary Jo Wilson with the feathery long hair and the coke-bottle glasses. "I'm not really seeing her, it was just a couple dates."

"Couplea dates for you usually means it's time to start picking out the curtains," and even as he's saying it he wishes he wasn't, because Tim gives him this look that's all shock and badly-hidden hurt and he remembers that that's maybe his least-favorite thing about Tim - the way he can never tell how things are going to go until he's waist-deep in rising water.

"Maybe," Tim says, and then they're rushing out the door.

There's a limo parked out front, tinted windows and sleek paint job looking more than a little out of place on Tim's quiet street. Sean feels his eyes widening, twists the expression into a raised eyebrow, half a sly smile. "Goin' all out, huh?"

Tim shrugs and turns away, but Murphy catches the corner of his mouth quirking upward. "From what I hear, you only turn forty once," he says, and then the driver's coming around the side of the car and opening the door for them and they're off.

They crack a bottle of champagne as the limo winds its way through the suburbs and toward the city, picking up Tim's buddies on the way - a few of the CO's from his cell block, the staff psychiatrist, the doc. They all seem nice enough, but the first one Sean takes notice of is the guy in charge of Tim's cell block, a big dumb-looking guy who introduces himself as Harry, reaches for the champagne before he's even all the way in the car. Sean tries not to watch him too close, tries hard to act friendly and normal while he decides if this guy's sharp enough to be looking after Tim or not. He figures he can't really help being a little suspicious - Tim's got this knack for finding his way into trouble, and keeping him out of it for the couple of months he worked at Attica had become almost a full-time job.

The bottle goes quick, drags the conversation along with it; there's been some kind of uproar at the prison, some trouble between the bikers and the Muslims. Sean tries to follow the story, gets himself hopelessly lost in a tangle of names and offhand references to things he's not familiar with. He clamps down hard on the wave of anxiety that's trying to creep its way up his throat, leans back in the soft leather seat and just watches, instead; watches Tim's eyes getting a little brighter as they open another bottle, watches his gestures get broader and more animated, has to stop watching when Tim starts smiling a little too big, getting a little too friendly. Fuck, he thinks - gonna be one of those nights.

They haven't had one in a while, and even as most of Sean's dreading it, chinking his mental armor into place against what he's pretty sure is coming, there's a little part of him that's almost excited, a part of him that's hoping this night is going to go exactly the way countless nights before it have gone - hoping Tim's gonna have a little too much to drink, get a little too close, touch Sean one too many times - actually hoping for it, even though he knows in advance it's not gonna be enough, that Tim's not gonna mean it the way Sean wants him to mean it.

But the Murphys are survivors - heard it from Pop more than once, when he'd come home down and dragging from a poorly-played game or a flunked test, snappish and demoralized. Pop would ask, you make a basket? You get a couple questions right? And Sean would nod, or he'd shake his head and Pop would keep asking until he'd turned up some little thing that had gone right, and then Pop would say - well, that's something, at least, and he'd turn back to his paper like whatever tiny hint of success he'd found in his son was more than enough. Take what you can get, Sean learned, however small and insignificant it might seem - take it, use the knowledge, drag yourself up with it. Figure out how to keep going.

He's got a corner, a little box in his mind he keeps jammed full of tiny successes, though they're probably nothing his pop would see as success. The day at Fun Country their freshman year, and the feel of Tim's fingers tight around his for just a second before they were hurtling down the water slide into the lake; the way Tim's eyes lit up the first time he came home from college on break; the night they'd gone out together after work, sat at the bar trading ridiculous, outlandish ideas, the way Tim had sounded when he laughed. There's nothing big, nothing momentous; just individual breaths, a collection of seconds that reaches across decades - but they're Sean's, and nobody else's, and he thinks of each one as a victory, figures they're at least close enough.

As they're piling out of the car, onto the sidewalk outside the restaurant, Tim steps a little close and his fingers graze across the back of Sean's hand. It's just for an instant, and Tim doesn't even seem to notice, but Sean does. Jesus fuck, he thinks a little desperately, and then he takes the feel of Tim's fingers warm against his skin, gets it boxed up and shoved down into that corner of his mind, where he'll be able to find it later.

The restaurant's classy - which Sean had expected, given the dress code - and incredibly expensive, which he hadn't. It's not really Tim's style, it's so far from Tim's style it's almost ridiculous, almost assumed. Everyone's well-groomed and slick and it's not at all what Sean's expecting but Tim fits right in.

Nobody knows, but Sean's suddenly, sharply aware of the fact that he lives in the same town he grew up in, still goes to his mother's house for dinner every Sunday. There's a sense, as they follow the waiter through the dining room to a large private patio, of something slipping, something just out of his reach, but it's not until later, when he's spinning the stem of his wine glass between his fingers and listening to Tim and the psychiatrist talk about the opening of some new art gallery on the upper West Side, that it starts to make him feel small and left out and bitter. What the fuck, he thinks, indirectly and irritably, and when the waiter comes back around with the wine, Sean lets the guy top off his glass. It's a pretty damn good wine.

"It wasn't right," Tim's saying when he comes up for air, and Sean looks across the table at him. Tim's pissed, forehead all screwed up, knuckles going white where he's gripping the table, and Sean has to clamp down hard on the grin that's threatening to break out across his face. "Lupo was afraid, he knew he needed help, he came to you looking for it and you just shuffled him off to Connolly - "

The psychiatrist - a young guy in a smart charcoal tux - gives a strangely familiar, long-suffering sigh, scrubs a hand over his face. "And at Connolly, he'll get the help he needs, Tim. You know we don't have the resources on-site to care for someone that troubled."

"It wasn't right," Tim says again, quieter this time.

The psychiatrist waves a hand at him, looking almost bored, and turns to ask Harry something about the World Series. For a crazy second Sean wants to jump in, wants to tell the guy not to just brush Tim off like that, for fuck's sake, at least listen to what he's got to say - but as he watches Tim kind of sinks back in his chair, frowns for a second, and then just shakes it off, and Sean thinks - huh.

Back in the limo there's more champagne and expensive cigars; they roll the windows down and let the noises of the city filter in and Tim's leg is warm where it presses against Sean's and he just lets himself float, laughs with Tim and the guys, lets himself feel the alcohol and the good food sitting heavy in his stomach. They drop the psychiatrist and the other guys off at home and Sean's settling down, starting to think about sleep and the headache he's going to have in the morning, when Tim turns to him and Harry and says "Okay, now we party."

Sean laughs and asks, "Isn't that what we're doing?" but the way Tim grins sends a funny little shiver through him and he thinks oh, fuck, now it starts. There's a nice bar nearby that Tim says he's heard good things about, but he's never up to dress code. He actually looks kinda sad about it, and Sean reaches over, tweaks the collar of his shirt. "Think they're probably gonna let you in tonight, buddy."

"It's a step up from the sweater vests," Harry says, and fuck, there it is again - that split second of blinding rage, urge to reach out and just choke him - but Tim's laughing as they pile out of the car, as he leans in the window to pay the driver, and Sean thinks I need to calm the fuck down.

The bar is clean and modern, all smooth lines and angles, shining chrome and glass, and the people are similar; willowy women in flowing gowns, men with perfect smiles and slicked-back hairdos, fruity cocktails and drinks with umbrellas everywhere, and Sean wants a beer so bad it hurts - in a can, preferably. But he's here for Tim, and Tim's looking bright-eyed and happy and Sean takes a breath and goes to the bar.

And it's not so bad, really; Harry turns into quite the funny guy once he's got a couple drinks in him, Tim's keeping the scotch coming, and most of the people in here aren't bad to look at - it's nice, Sean thinks, to find a place where the guys are as attractive as the girls. Tim's started up the work talk again, trying to talk Harry into something he looks pretty uncomfortable with - "I'm telling you," Tim's saying as Sean zones back in, "We give them something to do and we're gonna have a happier, healthier cell block."

"They got checkers," Harry says into his glass. "Don't need nothing else."

Tim shakes his head. "No, we - I mean something productive, an education or some fucking art classes or - "

Harry laughs; it's a mean, small sound and Sean feels the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. "Come on," Harry says. "Art classes? Do you even fucking listen to yourself?"

"He's right," Sean says - has to, can't let it slide any more, even though Tim's just kind of shaking his head like he's going to give up and change the subject. "The more time they got on their hands, the more they're gonna waste slingin' tits and comin' up with ways to shank each other. Keep 'em busy, and maybe you're gonna have a shot at - "

"At what?" Harry's looking at him like he's a bug, a piece of gum ground into the sidewalk. "At - at helping them? At - shit, what did you say, McManus - " Bends his knees so he's more Tim's height, contorts his face into a twisted drooping hound-dog expression that's nothing at all like Tim - "Being the first positive influence they've ever had in their lives?"

Sean folds his arms across his chest, shrugs. "Something like that."

Harry cracks up, like it's the best joke he's heard in months. "Christ. Now I know why you two get along."

He blinks at Harry, almost asks what the fuck that's supposed to mean. Stops himself, just in time, because he's pretty sure he knows exactly what that's supposed to mean.

Tim's grinning, but he's got his shoulders hunched. "Yeah," he says. "I guess I sorta rub off on people sometimes."

"And those of us who've got any sense keep our goddamn distance," Harry chuckles. He claps Tim on the shoulder as he leaves, heads to the bar for another drink.

Something turns over in Sean's gut, something he's almost sure isn't related to the enormous steak or the alcohol or the dense press of bodies, and he thinks he's got it under control, but Tim's frowning at him. "What?" he asks, tips his glass up and drains it. "What, Tim?"

"He's my friend, Sean," Tim says. "He's just fucking around."

"I didn't say shit."

Tim shakes a finger at him - a little wobbily. "I've known you since the sixth grade," he says. "I can read you like a book. And I'm telling you, he's my friend."

"Some fucking friend," Sean mutters, but he doesn't push it, and Tim lets it go.

Maybe he's a little standoffish, after that; maybe he hangs out a little too much at the bar, spends a little too much time watching Tim from across the room rather than actually talking to him, but Murphy figures he can't really be blamed if he don't much feel like being friends right now. Besides, he thinks, Tim's got plenty of friends. Said so himself.

He ignores whatever it is that tugs in his chest at the thought, lets the sensation roll off his back and away, like it was never even there.

There's a guy at the other end of the bar - a good-looking guy, a guy Sean's pretty sure is looking at him, and he's half a second from going over there, saying to hell with it and just seeing what happens, when his goddamn traitor ears pick out Tim's laugh from across the room and he knows before he's even started moving that he's going exactly nowhere. Fuck this, he thinks, savagely; _fuck_ this, but his ass stays planted on the stool and when the bartender comes by, he flags her down.

Sean doesn't know what to do any more, if he ever fucking did, so he just lets himself get lost for a while; floats on the music and the steady buzz of conversation, sits there feeling sorry for himself until he realizes he doesn't know how long he's been here, realizes maybe he's drinking a little too fast. He sits up, jerking his back unnaturally straight, tries not to wobble as he blinks, scans the room.

Harry's nowhere to be seen and there's a couple girls near Tim, a short brunette and a pretty blonde in a barely-there cocktail dress. Tim's flushed and smiling and he's got his arm around the blonde's waist, but even from across the bar Sean can see that spinning crazy look in his eyes that says shit's about to go downhill fast. Suddenly the music's too loud, vibrating too strong and regular through Sean's chest, the rhythm putting the whole world into a weird swaying back-and-forth and he just wants to sleep -

Time to get it together. Murphy drains his glass without tasting its contents, the liquor sliding painlessly down his throat, sets it aside and reaches out. "Tim. Let's get outta here, huh?"

Tim swings around to look at him and Murphy can tell by the waver in his smile, the too-slow way his eyes track, that the party's over. "Nah, let's - let's hang out with Alicia and Kim here, some more, for some more time."

Murphy shakes his head, puts a hand on Tim's wrist, inside his opened sleeve; the skin there's warm and soft and Murphy's thumb slides across it before he can stop himself, Tim's pulse strong under his touch. "No, it's - come on, let's go outside, they can come with us - " All he can think is move, get moving, get started getting home because there's only so much time left before Tim's down for the count and you can't carry him that far any more - and there's someone up there watching out for him, because Tim considers it for a second, then nods and follows Murphy to the door, the girls helping him along.

It's been a while, he's thinking as he pushes through the crowd toward the door, since he's been this far gone; he wonders how much of this he's going to remember in the morning, how long they've been here. Outside, the sky's dark but the street's lit up, taxis honking at each other and jockeying for position, people spilling out of the bars, neon lights and the sound of ten different muted songs at once. The cool air hits him hard and he spins, searching the street, making sure - but there's Tim, just behind him, the girls starting to look a little annoyed. He's hanging on them pretty heavily and Murphy's about to tell them thanks, he's got it from here, when Tim snaps his head up.

"Oh," he says, "Oh, shit, I'm gonna be - " and then he throws up in a really kind of spectacular way all over his shoes and the bottom of the blonde's swingy dress.

And he feels bad about it, but Murphy can't help being the tiniest bit pleased as he guides Tim over to lean on the side of the building for a minute, watches the girls casting nasty looks over their shoulders as they head back inside, because damn - he can still count on Tim to really step up to the occasion. He shuts them out, leans against the wall and waits, listens to footsteps on the pavement and the sound of Tim's ragged breaths, and after a few minutes Tim stands up, staggers back into Murphy's field of view, wipes a hand across his mouth and says "Fuck."

Sean nods. "Yeah." Pushes himself off the wall, tries not to notice how everything's got a strange kind of wobble to it. "Come on, you ready to go home? Lemme grab a taxi."

Tim shakes his head. "No," he says. "Let's walk."

Sean frowns. His sense of direction's all fucked up and he's sure the alcohol isn't helping but he doesn't think they're anywhere near Tim's place. "You sure? Isn't it kinda - "

"Nah, it's not far, it's just a couple blocks, come on, it's a nice night - " Tim's already taking off, staggering steps down the street, and Sean thinks, fuck it - if he wants to walk we'll walk.

He feels kinda stupid, all dressed up and drunk off his ass, wobbling his way through an unfamiliar suburb. It's early still and a few of the houses still have lights on in the windows; Sean thinks of families settling down for the night, sleeping dogs and toddlers in cribs. Tim's hand is heavy when it rests on his arm, just below his elbow, but he doesn't push it off, lets Tim lean on him. A few cars pass, every now and then there's a gust of wind or a distant horn, but for the most part it's quiet, just the sound of their matched footsteps, Tim's breathing. "I hate it here," Tim says suddenly.

They've been walking for a while and Sean's not exactly with it and he says, "Huh?"

Tim shifts closer, gets his arm around Sean's waist. "I just - I think they all think I'm crazy, Sean, I'm tryin and they just - "

"Come on," Sean says, even though he's thinking you're right, your friends are all assholes, you should just come home. "They seemed okay, you're the new guy, you're - "

Tim's shaking his head against Sean's shoulder. "No, it's - they blow me off, they laugh at me, I never should've come here."

Oh, for fuck's sake. He stops and takes Tim by the shoulders, steadies him. "You listen to me, okay? You're exactly where you're supposed to be, you're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing, and fuck anyone who says different." Tim's opening his mouth, brain already on the next thing he's going to say, and Sean holds out a finger. "No, shut up. I mean it, Tim. Fuck 'em, okay? You're - you can't - " He takes a ragged breath - he's far too drunk and he should have shut up a long time ago but he's already started now - "Don't let 'em shut you down. Don't you ever let them shut you down."

Really, he's just glad that Tim's drunk too - probably drunker than he is - because he knows that sounded all kinds of stupid but Tim's looking at him with this big wet-eyed expression on his face, and he just nods, smiles a little bit, says "Thanks" real quiet and keeps walking and before long they're in front of Tim's building.

"Stairs," Tim says, frowning.

"Yup." Sean waits a minute, lets Tim get used to the idea, then tugs him across the street, through the first set of doors. "You're the idiot who lives on the third goddamn floor. Where's your keys?" It's a struggle, but he manages to get them in the door and up the stairs, into Tim's little apartment; he tips Tim onto the couch and collapses next to him. "I'm done," he says, weakly. He can't even spare the energy to sit forward and take his jacket off.

"Done," Tim agrees. The room's dark and so quiet after being on the streets, and Sean's just going to close his eyes, just for a minute - "She's pretty," Tim says.

Sean frowns in the darkness behind his eyelids. "Who?"

"Eleanor," Tim says with a little sigh, and Sean has to concentrate, think for a minute before he remembers - a blonde, Tim's not seeing her, it was just a couple of dates. Except Tim's always been an honest drunk. Too honest, sometimes.

"That's good." He tries to keep his voice neutral. "That she's pretty."

"She thinks I'm crazy, too," Tim mutters. There's a rush of air and a soft thump, like he's lost his balance and tipped over, and when he speaks again his voice is wobbly and muffled and far away. "She thinks I'm pathetic."

"You're not pathetic." The words are out before he can stop himself and he bites his lip and waits, but for once, Tim's got nothing else to say on the subject. Murphy sighs, lets his body sink into the couch, lets sleep start to come.

"Sean?"

Forces his eyes open, sees Tim face-planted into the cushions next to him. He drops a hand down to Tim's shoulder, lets it rest there, warmth and the faint odor of alcohol coming up through Tim's thin shirt. "Yeah."

Tim wiggles, trying to look up. "You're still my best friend." He's got his neck wrenched at an odd angle, forehead pressed into the side of Sean's leg; he reaches out wildly, knocks an empty glass off the table before he finds Sean's knee, curves his hand over it. "Ever, ever, ever."

Fuck him, Sean thinks; fuck him to hell and back for doing this now. His hand tightens on Tim's shoulder. "I know, buddy," and it's the liquor, it's got to be the liquor that's making his throat feel all thick and strange, like his body's trying to keep his words back. It seems so easy, here in Tim's hip little apartment, miles and miles away from everything that makes it complicated, makes it painful and confusing and so, so difficult; Tim's the best friend he's ever had, ever gonna have. Simple.

"Love you," Tim says; sighs it, really, on the end of a long breath and quiet enough that if Sean wanted to he could pretend he hadn't heard it.

For just a minute, he wishes he could stay here forever.

Instead, he slides his hand down Tim's arm, weaves their fingers together, falls asleep to the weight of Tim's head settling down on his thigh.

*

The morning sun is far too bright and his head's killing him but if he doesn't get going he's never going to make it home in time for his shift, and Murphy pauses on the steps of Tim's building, finds a battered Mets cap in his bag and pulls it on. "So let's get together again sooner than three years from now, huh?"

Tim nods, shading his eyes with one hand and leaning up against the door frame. "Yeah." He's looking ragged and tired and small, and Murphy's trying his best to ignore the thing that's been twisting and tugging in his chest since he woke up, hauled himself off the couch and started packing his bag.

"Dunno, though," Murphy says. He ducks his head until he can look Tim in the eye. "I'm gettin kinda old to have that much fun on a regular basis," and Tim shakes his head and laughs a little and the sound doesn't make Murphy feel any better, really, but maybe it starts to come close.

"I know, I know." Tim folds his arms across his chest, puts on a show of studying the cracked tile floor. "Listen, Sean, I - " Meets Sean's gaze head-on, and oh, fuck, who let him have eyes like that - "Thanks for coming. I - it means a lot."

All the air's sucked out of the little foyer. "Any time."

There's an awkward couple seconds where he's not sure what else he's supposed to do but he can't figure out how to leave, and then Tim kind of lurches forward, slings an arm around his neck and squeezes tight. "Bye," he breathes into Sean's neck.

He curves his hand around Tim's back, presses his palm flat between his shoulder blades. "Bye, Tim."

The drive home takes hours and the whole way he can't see a damn thing but Tim, awkward angles and big stupid eyes, all alone down there in the endless city. He showers and gets dressed and heads to work, and somewhere between the trees and the low narrow fields and the churning river he crosses on the way he gets the thought boxed up, shoves it into the corner of his mind, carries on.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "[Drown](http://www.cmt.com/lyrics/son-volt/drown/841230/lyrics.jhtml)" by Son Volt.
> 
> Extra-huge thanks to my mom and my SO and my best friend J, all of whom helped me figure out why I was mad at this story, even though none of them are in fandom at _all_.


End file.
